


Real Soldiers

by Measured_Words



Category: Diablotin
Genre: Blackbloods, Epiphanies, Gen, Jerks, Nationalism, Psyrene War, Racism, Racist Language, Shadar-Kai, Soldiers, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 12:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8533030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: An Aveyrone soldier has an encounter with some members of the army's shadar kai division.  They couldn't have fit in no matter how they dressed or what they carried, with their skin in all shades of grey, their long pointed ears, their dull-coloured and slanted eyes, their tattoos, their scars.  They didn't belong to this world, let alone the empire, and they looked it.  They didn't even bleed red – and so the name for their unit, the Blackbloods.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another Psyrene War story for Remembrance Day.... Different characters this time, and more complex themes.

These ones wore uniforms, faded green, scratchy wool patched up in places, like any other soldiers. There were still differences even here – one wore a colourful sash, another a scarf, or gloves, anything to make the uniform less than just that. They carried non-issue weapons – swords, chains, other archaic implements – along with rifles that to Garen's eye were getting the bare minimum of required maintenance, if that. They pushed other boundaries – one had hair in several shades of green that brushed down below his collar. Others let theirs hang long and loose, or wore them up in technically acceptable but no less strange styles, like the one whose head was shaved save for a topknot. That one wasn't wearing her? His? It's? Their? Hat.

But that was all window dressing. They couldn't have fit in no matter how they dressed or what they carried, with their skin in all shades of grey, their long pointed ears, their dull-coloured and slanted eyes, their tattoos, their scars. They didn't belong to this world, let alone the empire, and they looked it. They didn't even bleed red – and so the name for their unit, the Blackbloods. 

Garen had heard of them, but never seen any of the shadar kai troops. There were many rumours about why they were allowed to serve, about the kinds of missions they were used for… And now they were here, at his base, sitting together at the table across from his in the mess tent, chattering to each other in their strange language – they could be saying anything. He tried not to stare, but even when he could tear his eyes back to his own companions and his meal, he couldn't put them out of his mind.

Araline nudged him with her elbow. She was part of his squad – they'd been through a lot together in the last year. "Buncha weirdos, huh?" she muttered. "They're staring back."

Garen grunted, stabbing at the reconstituted potato slop with his mess kit fork. "Let 'em, they can see what real soldiers look like."

He'd raised his voice, and was satisfied, if nervous, to see his statement had attracted attention from the Blackblood table. Araline immediately bent her head down, focusing on her rubbery chicken and mushrooms, but Garen felt committed now. The comment had elicited a range of responses from the group: the desired discomfort, anger, annoyance. Maybe even shame – he wasn't sure, but he could hope. Several of them looked his way, but it was the green-haired man who lay in his direct line of vision. The top-knotted one beside him his rolled... – her, Garen decided, making her getup seem all the more perverse – her eyes at her companion and shook her head, returning with indifference to her own meal. They were close enough that Garen could read their name patches. The green haired one read "ur N'Mar", the other read "ar Szedlec". It was unpronounceable gibberish, not even real words.

One of the other shadar kai said something that Garen didn't understand, and the others laughed, or chuckled, or smiled, and turned their backs on him, for the most part. ur N'mar smiled at the remark, but didn't break his gaze, and Garen felt his face grow hot. He started to rise, but Araline grabbed his arm, holding him in place. 

"Not worth it," she hissed. "Taking out that trash'll still get you in shit."

She was right, but it was hard for Garen to swallow down the bile that rose in his throat, or not to give in and punch the smug little smile of the freak's face. He'd lost his appetite, but choked down his food anyway. Araline followed suite, the two of them making a swift exit from the mess hall to bitch about the encounter in more greater privacy, reassuring each other that only circumstances and respect for their own uniforms had prevented a different and more satisfying scenario from unfolding.

Garen couldn't put the encounter out of his mind, though. It had turned myth to reality, and he knew they were still around on base. They weren’t in the mess hall in the morning, but others were talking about them. Some of it was the usual rumor mongering, people wondering what sorts of bigger picture things were going on that might have had them sent to this little corner of the war. Others were dragging up stories of the team's exploits, tales passed from ear to ear and likely twisted with every retelling. They were no better or worse than stories told about other units, but Garen had decided there couldn't be more than a kernel of truth to those, either. But he was in general agreement that they weren't just like any other soldiers. They were different, and maybe they didn't belong in this war any more than they belonged in this world.

It was another day later when he saw any of them again. He was with Araline again, just coming in off patrol. It was the topknotted woman he saw this time, walking alone from the med tent with her arm in a sling – maybe she'd spilled some of that precious black blood, he thought. She was a lone target this time, and unarmed. He looked to Araline, and she shrugged and followed when Garen approached her. He wasn't sure what he wanted, what he was going to say, but it had to be something. He wanted to be clear – he wasn't afraid, he knew what was right.

"Hey," he said, stepping into her path, Araline stepping up beside him. But the Blackblood just rolled her eyes again and stepped aside to continue on her way.

"He was talking to you," Araline started, reaching to grab her by the shoulder. 

Garen wasn't quite sure what happened next, except that Araline wound up on her back on the ground with a startled grunt, and the shadar kai was wiping off her free hand on her uniform pants. She hadn't spoken a word, only shot him a more deeply annoyed look.

"What the void was that, you freak!" Garen stepped up, but felt a hand on his own shoulder and whirled around. It was the green-haired one –ur N'Mar. He looked a little worse for wear as well, an ugly black bruise spreading for the line of old scars on his cheek, along with some scorching that could have been from a spell, or being too close to an explosion, though there had been no reports of fighting in the area or any deployments of regular troops from the base.

The shadar kai backed off as Garen turned, quickly removing his hand. "That was self defense, Private – let it go and move along." His words were clear despite the strange accent. Garen noticed he was holding something in his hand, just behind his back – some kind of slim tube. It wasn't any kind of weapon he recognized, but he didn't know what else it could be. 

Araline was picking herself up, but the shadar kai had moved to stand together – the woman standing protectively by the man despite being the more injured of the two.

"Private… You've got no rank on me – and you don't belong here. Why don't you just run back to your own world, darkie."

"This is our world, now. Does that bother you so much? That we want what you have? That we would work for it? The empire can't find enough of its own people who want to fight for it, but we will. Did you volunteer for this?" 

Garen had been drafted, but he'd planned to volunteer, just after he'd gotten a few things straightened out. "I'm proud to fight for the Empire – for its loyal people," he growled.

"If you are looking for disloyalty, I think you'll find the Psyrenes are on the other side of the walls. They're the ones who will be shooting at you – I know this will be confusing because they look the same as you." He sneered, seemingly untroubled by how it pulled at the burns and contusions on his face. The woman nudged him though, giving him a look, though she didn't speak even to her own companion. 

"Yeah well – what's your friend got to say for herself, huh?" Araline was back on her feet and standing at his side, winded but looking no worse for wear. 

"B'razvi isn't going to break his vows for the likes of you – but if you continue to delay us from our duties with your small-minded nonsense, I'm sure you will get a much harsher message than your friend." He was holding the tube more clearly at his side now, but as much as Garen wanted to rise to the challenge, some instinct warned that it might not be in his best interest. The shadar kai was baiting him, that was all, and he was better than that.

"That's right, you run along to your officers!" Garen stepped back to let them pass, glaring at their backs.

"Assholes," Araline muttered after they'd gone. He couldn't agree more.

They didn't have to worry about any further encounters after that afternoon, as they were readying for their own deployment. Whatever obstacle had been preventing the brass from sending troops against the little hill fort where the local rebel forces were holed up had apparently been removed, and their platoon was being sent to take and secure the position. 

These missions were much more satisfying than the weeks spent in the trenches – better to take a small fort and keep it than spill red blood for no more that a few feet in either direction over the course of a month. Too bad these opportunities were so rare, given the geography of the mountains and the home-turf advantage held by the slicks. Garen was looking forward to the fight, but first they had to get there. It was reported to be a two day hike from the base, and that was two days of potential ambushes from the guerillas that operated out of that same hill fort. It also meant two days for the slicks to gather their supplies and book it to some new safe spot, but the confidence of the officers was contagious.

The afternoon of the first day, they passed into what was clearly the scene of combat – the Psyrene bodies cleared out of their path were the best clue, but there were other signs of scuffle. And while all the blood staining the rocky ground was dark, not all of it was red. The Blackbloods had been here first, to clear the way. The bodies showed it, when he looked more closely: there wasn't much evidence of magic, but they hadn't been shot either. They'd been stabbed or beaten, and who knew what else. One of the corpses was bloated and discoloured in a way that spoke of more than just a day or two in the mountain heat, and one had been turned to stone and then smashed. It was unsettling. There were no grey corpses, but they would have had a chance to recover their own.

Garen didn't have to wonder long what the fight had been about. Cresting the next rise, the platoon called a break, and his captain and warrant office peeled off to consult with the intelligence team that was swarming over the remnant of an unfamiliar machine that Garen could only assume was some kind of weapon. There were corpses here as well, though at a guess he'd say that the main fighting had been on the other side of the hill, trying to keep the shadar kai back away from whatever this was. Only a day's march way. The earth was scorched here in places, and he remembered the Blackblood's burns.

With the halt called, the soldiers were allowed to sit, or wander and stretch their legs. Some were going to check out the bodies, but Garan felt he'd seen enough, and pulled Araline to go over and try and eavesdrop on whatever the officers and Intel were talking about.

"Do you think this is what the darkies were here for?" She asked as they wandered the site, circling what Garan hoped was inconspicuously towards the strange large machine.

"It's got to be. If it were any of the regular unit's, we'd have heard something by now."

She nodded. "What do you think that…thing is? Or was?"

Garen looked at it. It had parts that with some stretch of the imagination might have been a cannon, but not one that launched any kind of normal projectiles. "Some kind of big magic gun? I don't know – maybe it launched fireballs."

Araline surveyed the area warily, then shook her head. "We're not even a day from the base."

"A day's march – maybe more for that thing." It had some belts around its wheels that he hadn't seen before, but he still wasn't sure how efficiently it could move over the rough terrain. At this distance he could tell that it had been thoroughly disabled, and violently enough that it might be a contributing factor in why its purpose was so hard to determine. One of the officers looked up at them with a stern frown, and they backed away. The end facing away from them looked like it had been melted somehow, and now that he was looking, he saw pieces of metal slag on the ground. "It's not going anywhere now," he muttered.

They steered back towards the crest of the hill, picking a path that took them closer to where their captain was standing, and let them linger to find solid footing on the incline. Their captain's voice drifted up the hill in clips, echoing off the stones despite her attempts to keep it low.

"…would have been disastrous…didn’t have to send mine…heavier losses….confusion."

"Hey, you two, clear out of this area." 

That had been the intelligence officer. Garen and Araline snapped off quick salutes, and did what they were told, withdrawing to the rest area.

"We could have done it," Araline scoffed once they'd made themselves comfortable in the shade of a tall boulder, sipping water from their canteens. "There weren't that many slicks."

"Yeah." Garen shrugged. "Probably."

"You don't think so? You think the darkies did better than we could have?"

Garen looked around again. It wasn't fair – this was the sort of thing he'd wanted to do. Something special, important. Not just another slog in the mud. Araline was right, they could have done it. But so was the captain. It would have cost them. The chances of them getting close enough to pull off whatever was necessary without getting seen, and without the slicks having a chance to fire off that thing, were slim. And maybe the base would have had time to prepare, but what kinds of preparations would they even have been able to make against something so unknown? "Looks like they did alright," he said grudgingly.

Araline shrugged, taking another sip from her canteen. But Garen was thinking – about why you would sign up for this… What you would get for this kind of service, and what you might deserve, if you survived. They couldn’t have pulled this off without losing anyone, so it had to be worth the risk of death. It was for him. The Empire was his home.

As they marched away, Garen had few answers, just more questions, about who the shadar kai were, what they wanted, and why they thought to find it here. But one thing he had settled in his mind – perhaps they were real soldiers after all.


End file.
